National Antivisection Society
2004-05 Back Pain - Tissue culture system
Intervertebral discs are the cartilage between individual spinal bones which act as shock absorbers. Degeneration of the intervertebral disc (DIVD) is often implicated in chronic low back pain.
With an LDF grant, Professor Anthony Freemont and Dr Judith Hoyland hope to identify the causes of cellular changes underlying DIVD and use these to help design new therapies. The University of Manchester team have shown in vitro that the cytokine (chemical involved in the immune system) interleukin-1 (IL-1) induces the cellular changes in DIVD and can be reversed with IL-RA (interleukin-1 receptor antagonist).
Traditionally, cell culture studies in this field are followed by animal experiments and since few animals spontaneously develop DIVD it is artificially induced. The LDF team believe that such experiments contribute almost nothing to the understanding of DIVD. They aim to establish whether IL-1 has the same effects in whole tissue as in cell culture. To do this they are developing the first tissue culture system that uses human tissue to study DIVD. The new system mimics the forces and pressures within human discs, rather than those of animals which do not share our posture.
Professor Freemont and Dr Hoyland comment: “We believe that our loaded disc system could have so many advantages over the animal models because it employs human tissue, works under human spinal loading conditions and the experimental conditions can be very closely monitored and controlled – were our research successful, there would be an immediate and significant decrease in animal experimentation in this field of research.”
Please help us end the abuse of animals, please make a donation today…
action alerts